Two months ago, hoggish kingpin Donald Trump vowed to save kindly old Ed McMahon, whose Beverly Hills home was in danger of foreclosure. Trump said he was going to buy McMahon's place and lease it back to the aging TV personality at a reasonable price. We told you then that the move was prompted by nothing more than Trump's craving for easy publicity, but we had no idea how low Trump was willing to go to get his sullied name in print.

Heyoooooooooooooo, Ed's been abandoned!

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ONCE AGAIN, 'ART FILMS' LOSE OUT TO ACTION FLICKS "The school's-out movie season concludes this weekend, and domestic ticket sales so far total $3.9 billion, up a little more than 1% from last year's record summer, according to Media by Numbers. Year-to-date revenues stand at $6.7 billion, down slightly from 2007, but up from the three earlier years, the tracking firm says. Higher ticket prices mean theaters are selling fewer total admissions, but few distributors and exhibitors are complaining — except for those handling what has become Hollywood's trickiest sell: the art film."

BLOCKBUSTER NOT GOING GENTLY INTO THAT GOODNIGHT "Blockbuster won't cede the DVD kiosk industry to upstart Redbox just yet. The video-rental giant said Monday that it will test 50 automated kiosks built by NCR, a company known for its ubiquitous automated teller machines. The test begins this quarter with the intention that it will be successful — competitors have proved as much — encouraging Blockbuster to roll out 10,000 kiosks in the next 18 months. … Redbox operates 6,000 kiosks, each containing more than 500 DVDs representing as many as 150 new-release titles. Redbox rents the DVDs for $1 a night, and rentals can be returned at any kiosk. The company splits the revenue with the venues that house the kiosks. Analysts expect that the DVD kiosk industry will grow $197 million last year to $760 million in 2010. Blockbuster said Monday that while its machines will stick to renting DVDs for now, the technology allows for them to burn DVDs in the future for purchase."

DUELING SHERLOCKS "Columbia Pictures is betting that audiences will quickly embrace as inherently hilarious the idea of Sasha Baron Cohen and Will Ferrell as Sherlock Holmes and his crime-solving partner Dr. Watson, Variety reports. … Based on the famed novels by Arthur Conan Doyle, the comedy is the second Holmes project currently in the works at a major studio, although Warner Bros.' 'Sherlock Holmes' is a drama written by Anthony Peckham to be directed by Guy Ritchie."

MOVIE EXECUTIVES MADE SLIGHTLY LESS WEALTHY LAST YEAR "More than 2.5 billion movie files were downloaded worldwide in 2007, 2.5 times more than in 2006, according to figures from the MPA released in Brussels on Monday. The MPA report also revealed that more than 17 million people are simultaneously using the six largest peer-to-peer networks at any one time."

This movie! This MOVIE! This damn Sex and the City: The Movie movie!

It's inescapable (especially in THE city), but does that mean it's going to be successful? No.

But probably yes, too.

The recent history of female-focused summer films shows it could go either way. The Devil Wears Prada debuted in June of 2006 with $27 million opening weekend — on its way to a considerable $124 million grand total domestically. But just a few weeks ago, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler took center stage in Baby Mama, a widely hyped comedy that opened with a respectable-but-less-than-stellar $17 million opening weekend.

After the jump, industry analysts assess the situation while simultaneously calling you and your friends predictable and Kentucky primitive.

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